Story-lines
What a crazy day it's been.  It's probably never a good thing when a sports blog's biggest news is the strife on the blog -- rather than on the team the blog covers -- although I suppose I'd rather there be dissent here than on the Cubs. 

Still, we've learned today that we shouldn't care about whether or not rival fans are homophobic -- and the act of caring may make us homophobic to boot -- and that people are incredibly, unbelievably sensitive on both sides when it comes to voicing opinions that aren't necessarily popular (and opinions on either side could fall into that category, so don't assume I'm talking about one or the other). 

I have learned, meanwhile, that it is impossible to satisfy everybody -- and to try doing so leaves nobody at all feeling any kind of satisfaction.  So, I guess I'm going to go back to only trying to satisfy meself. 

Who's Hot
Not the Cubs.  Sorry, should I sugar-coat it?  Should I pretend that before the 2007 season I never wanted Jim Hendry fired for a laundry list of reasons, which he only was able to avoid by finally opening the check book and signing some top tier talent?  Should I pretend to have never felt that Hendry was forced to compensate for his complete and undeniable inability to grow talent by throwing oodles of money at players who are now under-performing en masse -- players he now has zero chance of moving even if he sees a way to improve his team?  Should I also pretend that I was alone in wanting the Cubs to have a change back before two winning -- but ultimately futile -- seasons were purchased?

That doesn't mean I have given up on the 2009 season, on the contrary I really haven't.  But I have given up on having expectations.  Maybe the Cubs will pull it together -- they should certainly be capable of doing so, but we all may agree that inertia is a bitch -- or maybe they won't.  I don't think this blog is doing a disservice by suggesting that the possibility that they won't is indeed a possibility.  And it's a possibility that's growing stronger each and every day.

In the past, this blog -- along with all the other cool blogs -- would have sneered at the Pollyellons of the world, forecasting sunshine on even a cloudy day, but it seems that even some of our own writers get very, very ANGRY when we say things like "this team isn't performing up to expectations" and "maybe somebody should be held accountable, like Lou Piniella or Jim Hendry."

This morning I wrote a big section about who's to blame.  Without blaming any one person, I did point out that everybody could be blamed.  From Milton Bradley and his fragile ego to Lou Piniella and his questionable management, from any hitter who's underperforming to any pitcher who's failed to get a big out, this mess does not fall on the shoulders of just one person.  But why is it too much to ask that maybe somebody man up and take some kind of responsibility for things?  Rather than get mad at me for asking that question, answer it instead.  I'd appreciate that.

Anyway, I have always -- always* -- said that baseball is very much a What Have You Done For Me Lately sport.  The mastermind who built your team's World Championship squad five years ago should not be guaranteed a job for life, especially if said team is lounging about in the basement on mom's computer.  I refuse to kiss Lou Piniella's ass from now until the day he gracefully retires because he gave me the first back-to-back division title Cub teams of my lifetime.  Getting mad at me for being consistent -- and you can go back and read through everything I have ever written, my philosophy of baseball has not suddenly changed -- is pointless and wrong. 

(*ALWAYS)

So here's what I'm going to do.  I am going to blog about the Cubs.  When they lose a tough game, just like Harry Caray in the booth, or like Steve Stone, I am not going to pull my punches about how upset I feel.  When they win big -- or even little -- I'm not going to rain on everybody's parade. 

I will try like hell to have fun while doing it.  If the season progresses and the Cubs continue to tank, you can bet your ass that the fun I have will be directed at them.  The balls-busting photoshops are on their way. 

But I will not give up on the 2009 season until my two previously-mentioned conditions are met.  For those with short memories, they are as follows: 10 games below .500, or 10 games out of a playoff spot.

If you have a problem with me busting balls or being truthful about the frustrating moments then this is the time to voice your displeasure.  Otherwise I can only assume that you're in it with us for the long haul.  Sound fair?

Conclusions
So, yeah.  That's tonight's GameCast.  Fun, wowee, I hope you enjoyed it my friends.

Overview

The Pirates roll into town with a chance to leap-frog the Cubs and send the Cubs reeling into last place.  That's cool.

The Pirates, compared to the Cubs, are an offensive juggernaut.  They currently rank 7th in the league in runs (the Cubs are 13th), lead by Adam LaRoche, Freddie Sanchez, and Andrew McCutchen.  Those are pretty decent hitters, but do you know how many of the Pirates hitters have been better than their Cub counterpart?

All of them.  Seriously.  If you swapped any Pirate player for his positional equivalent on the Cubs, you would see an offensive improvement.  That may be the most remarkable statement I've ever written on this site.  The Pirates are that much better than the Cubs offensively.

Me: astounded.

So next time you think about the trouble the Cubs have had hitting the ball, just remember this: the Pirates are 100% better.

Niiiiiice.

Monday, June 29th - Rich Harden vs. Zach Duke
Harden has been a hard 'en to figure out (heh).  We all know that there are hardly any pitchers out there with better stuff then Harden when healthy and on, and yet Harden looks terrible.  Granted, he hasn't been on and we don't know if he's healthy, but...well, I don't have a conclusion to that sentence.  I just want him to do better. I was really excited to have a full season of Rich Harden and he's been yet another disappointment in 2009. 

Zach Duke is the Pirate's best pitcher and a likely all-star, so of course the scuffling Cubs get to face him.  Whee!  Historically, the Cubs have handled him pretty well, but historically the Cubs haven't tried this hard to break my heart.  Okay, that's a lie. But in the last two years, they haven't tried to break my heart at all.

Except in the playoffs.  What was my point again?

Tuesday, June 30th - Ted Lilly vs. Ross Ohlendorf
Other than in his last outing, Lilly have been quite good.  He has started to slow a bit recently, but overall he's still the Cubs' go-to guy and their likely all-star representative.  If anyone can stop the pain, it's Lilly.  Of course, generally "stopping the pain" means "killing the victim" after "a long night of torture" and is followed up with "sauteeing the victim's liver in olive oil and serving it up with a light chardonney".  However, if could also mean beating the Pirates.

Ross Ohlendorf?  I'm sorry, until you get a real name, I can't write about you.

Wednesday, July 1st - Randy Wells vs. Virgil Vasquez
Randy Wells has stopped his losing ways and has begun a nice little winning streak (yes, two games is a streak).  Aside from Lilly who gets the nod for a full season's worth of performance, Wells has been the Cubs' best pitcher.  With a combination of control and movement, Wells have kept hitters off balance and the Cubs in the game. 

Virgil?  Jeebus, where do the Pirates get these guys.  Virgil threw 6 innings of 2 run ball against the Royals in his only start.  Extrapolating from those numbers, I expect him to throw 14 innings of shutout ball against the Cubs and with 42 strikeouts.

Conclusion
The starting pitching is strong and the offense is weak.  Will the Pirates come in and sweep the Cubs and send them rocketing into last?  Only time will tell.

(although the answer is yes)

Go Cubs.

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It is safe to say that, without a shadow of a doubt, this team is in trouble. Whether they are imploding from within, or pressured from outside, or just playing really crappy baseball the ending of this mediocrity does not appear within sight. (Which doesn't mean that we can't have fun with the 2009 season, it's just that we risk having the mean kind of fun that nobody feels good about the next day -- like making out with a bulbous person the night before while undeniably drunk and desperate).

Unlike Jason (the Gay Pride parade??  c'mon, man...it's hard enough to defend our good name to other teams' fans) I did manage to watch yesterday's clusterf**k, and while I was looking forward to recounting for all of you my big weekend of Cell attendance, eating goat at the Taste of Chicago, and most of all, the recapping of big Cub wins followed by Sux fan baiting...pretty much any and all goodwill that might have remained after two straight divisional titles has been pissed away after yesterday.

I did eat goat, and I did go to Saturday's game, which was in fact entertaining.  I could probably write a book about the psychology of the so-called White Sox "fan", with 40% of the pages outlining the portion of their fanbase that actually cares about THEIR team, and then the rest dedicated to them who hate the Cubs more than they like the Sox.  Good for those who show support of their team, and even good for the skeezes wearing "Future Mrs. Posednik" tanktops.  But there were more "Cubs Suck" shirts than "Go Sox".   But even them hyper-ethnic licksticks can't hold my attention anymore.  They get to crow, and they earned it.

Yesterday, your team quit on you.  Your pitcher quit on you, your catcher is too fat and slow to stand up to catch a pitchout, your left side of your defense is too crappy to complete the most basic of plays, your offense is a joke (most of Saturday's runs were unearned), and your manager, most of all, has thrown up his hands.  Your manager was thoroughly out-managed this weekend by the Scarface wanna-be, which is ironic when less than ten years ago, a superior Sox team was swept in a playoff series because they were outmanaged, by a guy named Lou Piniella. 

I have been wondering out loud the last month whether or not Sweet Lou is possibly suffering from a case of sudden onset dementia, possibly a set of mini-strokes that happens sometimes to overweight guys in their sixties, because of clogged arteries to the brain.  But, more likely, it isn't a matter of "can't" more than "won't", because the man has given up. 

However, while this is inexcusable, when you are earning over $4 million per year to manage the on-field product, he is only human, and if he is feeling like he is stuck in the middle of a hopeless situation, he cannot be blamed for feeling that way.  There is no way this man signed off on this roster.  For a man who has stressed "roster flexibility" his whole career, he is stuck with the most inflexible roster imaginable.  He has a bullpen of middling righties with only one lefty, who himself is best suited for long relief.  His starters, while usually decent, are inefficient and put too much strain on the crappy pen.  He has three first basemen, four (or five if you care to chuck Theriot in the mix) backup middle infielders, two catchers hitting below .230, and three corner outfielders who combined make more money than many teams, and combined cannot match the homer and RBI production of Brad Hawpe, not to mention Albert Pujols.

The Cubs are acting like a bunch of needy children.  When the worst of them act out, the rest of them gang up and tell on him, like a bunch of brats who want to see the worst brat get punished, because it lightens their OWN load.  Very few Cubs try to help the other ones, and the ones that DO try are rebuffed. 

A lot of that HAS to be the money.  "Hey, I'm a 8-figure guy.   I got here my own mutha-f***ing self, and I don't plan on changing my ways!"  So there does not seem to be any teamwork, any sacrifice, and any ownership of the problem.  Now, some of you are more than ready to retort "Wrong, Rob.  Winning breeds chemistry!"  Yeah, okay.  That just shows me how young you are, how little experience you have with life, and with working on teams.  Winning enhances chemistry, true enough.  It rolls downhill, building on itself, good chemistry does.  But so does bad chemistry.  Team Chemistry is like a plant - if you have a good seed, nutured by good nutrients, you get a good result.  A bad seed, poorly maintained, dies. 

And the Cubs are dying right now.

Oh, but we're only 3.5 games out of first!!  Yeah, and we're only 1.5 games out of last.  We have a better chance of achieving the latter, than the former, and you are just fooling YOURSELF if you think otherwise.  Oh, then you might point out, things aren't any worse than they were in 2007, when Zambrano raked Barrett's face over the doors in the locker room.  Well, they are, and there are three reasons why:

• the 2007 turn-around began in early June.  It is damn near July now.
• Lou Piniella cared then.  He could care less now.  His use of David Patton was his way of throwing up the white flag.
• Most of all, Jim Hendry has done two more years of damage to this roster.

Which brings us to the ultimate bad guy in our story.  Jim Hendry must take responsibility for this failure, and this is a failure, a total organizational fail.  He is responsible for paying top dollar to Soriano, Fukudome, Bradley, Ramirez, Zambrano, Lilly, Jason Marquis and Dempster.  Out of these, he earns an A for Lilly, an A- for Ramirez, a C for Soriano, an Incomplete for Dempster, and F's on the rest. 

He let DeRosa go, in favor of filling his role with Fontenot, Miles, and then Freel, Blanco, and Bobby friggin' Scales.  Considering DeRosa is now wearing the pajamas of the Satanic Fowl, Hendry gets an 'F' on this deal.

Finding Reed Johnson is a positive, but then you weigh this against the lack of development of Felix Pie, Rich Hill, Matt Murton and Eric Patterson.  We are left with "team leaders" Derrek Lee and Carlos Zambrano.  The Zamboni will never grow up - why should he, while the money is flowing in?  And Lee might be a great guy, and a nice little player. But do not ever, ever confuse Derrek Lee with Chase Utley, Albert Pujols, A.J. Eyechart.  Their 'leadership effectiveness' far outstrips his.  He'd be a nice second banana.  THIS is why I was so disappointed last November when it sounded like Aramis Ramirez was cooking up excuses for last year's playoff flop.  I was truly hoping that he would develop into that guy.  He has the ability, and more of the temperment, to be more of a hammer, whereas Lee is more of a nail. 

So if you're dining in the MLB Diner, and you order 2009 Cub, and the waitress brings you this sloppy plate of mismatched ingredients, who is to blame?  Who is responsible for matching the spoiled meat with the angry, overspiced sauce next to four small piles of bland, tastless beans?  Mostly, its the chef's fault, and Hendry, as the chef of this year's special, must take the responsilbility here.  If he wants to try to blame his ownership situation...well, buddy?  It's up to you to determine if you will have the flexibility to deal, and if you were told no in the first place, you should have the guts to resign.  And if you were told yes, and you were misled, then you should do the honorable thing, and resign.  This mess happened on your watch, and you are incapable of fixing it.  This is mostly Jim Hendry's fault.

Of course, the rest of the fault lies with US, for continuing to order Cubs when time and time again the dish disappoints.  If we didn't keep ordering it, the chef would be forced to change the menu. 

Have the Cub's missed their chance to grab the brass ring?  This Cub's team was built to win now and I believe now has passed. It is time to look at the future.

The team is still up for sale with no end in sight. Ricketts has not been able to close the deal. As a matter of fact was/is looking for an additional 250 million from outside investers. Add that to the fact that he is going to have to invest a large amounts of money into improving Wrigley Field. He is not going to be the deep pockets owner we were hoping for.

Any rebuilding project is going to be handcuffed by the back loaded contracts we have. Also, is Jim Hendry the man we want to trust to do the rebuilding. Here are my suggestions as a possible direction we can go today.

The Ranger's are looking for starting pitching to make their run now. Work a 3 way deal with the Rangers and the Rockies, Trade them Lilly and Heilman for prospects and move the prospects, and Patton, to the Rockies for some combination of Ian Stewart, Ryan Spillboughs, and Seth Smith.

Fukudome has not totally sucked this year. Market him to a team that has a Japanese player and sell his lack production as being homesickness. Yes, we will need to eat part of the contract.

Play the heck out of Freel and market him as DeRosa lite. Keep starting Jake Fox hope he stays hot, there are teams looking for a righthanded bat.

Sit Bradley down. His stats do not justify his starting and if he misses enough starts he loses the option on the 3rd year of his contract. There will be whining, but who runs the team Lou and Hendry or the players.

The Giants are looking for a bat. Try and get D. Lee off of his no trade clause and ask for Matt Cain settle for J. Sanchez.

Kurt, I believe you have all the details on the sale of the team. Perhaps you could explain better why Rickett's does not have deep pockets.

Does anyone have better ideas of what the future holds?